Rescued Turtle Survives Severe Shell Damage from Snapping Turtle Attack

What the hell happened to this turtle? We're going to meet one of our banged up gals right now. Hey, what's going on everybody? Now, we have gotten these Crafts turtles. I have a one male and two females from Zoo Miami, and one came from my buddy Paul Vandercout. Uh, one of these gals disappeared a while back. Let me show you what happened. Let's grab her. Here she is. You can see she ran into a spot of trouble. We're going to bring her over here so we could talk to her. I could put her down without her going back into the pond. But these are really cool species of

turtle from Australia, the creps turtle. Uh they are an Madura turtle related to the pink belly sidenecks. But what happened was I had put them in the back pond and unfortunately I did not secure this area and I didn't realize they could climb over and kind of glide through here and get into the main pond. Now, in that main pond, what do we have? We've got gator snappers. And gator snappers will eat other turtles. So, unfortunately, what I think happened to this gal is she wound up getting attacked by one of the very big gator snappers. You could see she had a whole big chunk taken out

here. Um, I looking for and looking for her in that pond and I could never find her. And then only a few short months ago, I wound up seeing her and I grabbed her and that's when I saw all this damage. Now, it's pretty amazing that this turtle has done so well with so much damage. Now, this damage obviously happened within the last year and it's starting to hard up. That right there is new shell tissue. So, it's amazing how these animals can take uh some damage on their shells uh and then the new tissue starts to grow back and it hardens. Um, and it'll be really,

really good. Unfortunately, obviously, this is not going to be grown back. And that hole right there won't go row back. And that's from the beak of the gator snapper. Let's get her back into the water. That Oh, she got sharp claws. That's from the beak of the actual gator snapper. And uh, it's just amazing. We don't want you to fall. Easy does it. It's just an amazing adaptation, the shell. And it can take some damage, but you don't want it to get crushed. Good girl. She's gonna go back in and do a little eating. Uh, but it's just amazing that, you know,

they can kind of take that kind of damage and still survive. The shell did its job. Uh, it's of course a bummer. You don't want any of your animals that are in captivity to have to deal with that kind of issue, but uh, they did go into that big pond. And that big pond is a little bit like the wild in that there are larger predatory turtles in there. Um, and there is really it's difficult for me to kind of police such a large pond, which is why most of the turtles in that pond are turtles that I know can take the winter that are turtles that are

just tough. It's kind of a community pond. Um, I feed them and what happens in there happens. Now, if I see a sick animal, I of course get it out of there. And it's such a large enclosure uh that it's more like a sinker swim type situation. But we found her a few months ago. I got her. I pulled her out and she's been doing fantastic. She's friendly. She comes up. She eats her food. She's probably a little annoyed that I pulled her out of the water now. But it's kind of neat uh the different shells and the damage that certain shells can take. Uh yet the animal is

able to continue and thrive. So I wanted to show a couple more shells. a couple more of the animals that had some damage to their shells, uh, but they have healed. It's just fascinating. I love the fact that these animals have these shells. It's basically a suit of armor that nature has developed for the turtle and tortoise. So, let's wander around and find another one of our critters that might have had an interesting thing happen to them in the wild or in their lives. Well, that's not a turtle or a tortoise, but it is something that's interesting and kind of related

to the animals we now know. It's Chelonians. I actually stopped in here because we have a really cool sculcata tortoise shell from a tortoise named Zeus. He used to live here at the camp. He was the largest sculcata I have ever seen. He was close to 200 lb. Unfortunately, I had gone to Australia and my dad was staying here. This is right around 2008ish. I was in Australia. Um and uh unfortunately um Zeus uh got in a fight with Lumpy. You guys know Lumpy. And Zeus got pierced from where the flesh attaches to the shell up here. Uh so he

unfortunately died. Uh but I wanted to kind of give you guys a look at the spine. Okay, you can see that is the fused part of the shell. Uh, the spine is along the vertebrals here. Hey, what are you doing? I'm glad you came out because I am gonna look for a little um inspiration from you. Okay, so just hang tight, will you, buddy? Hey, hang tight. Oh, yeah. They're getting much better, aren't they? These maniacs. Anyhow, like I was saying, it's a suit of armor. It's actually part of their skeleton. And uh you're not allowed to come in

front and start whipping me, dude. It's just not cool. These guys like to use the shell as a hiding area. And you got to be careful because they get real worked up and they want food. It's hot. These guys are hungry. So the shell actually has the spine and that is fused to these vertebral scoots uh the vertebral bones actually. And the scoots are the keratin uh that are right here that's actually um covering the bone. These are sutures. Um and you could see the fossa right there. They kind of have attached. So there's separate bone uh that fuses together. The ribs come

down here. The sternum bone that we have is on the outside. It's really a marvelous thing. So why did I say the lizards are an inspiration for this? Well, tortoises and lurles came from uh scientists believe they came from a lizardlike ancestor. Uh an animal that burrowed a lot and that it burrowed it kind of got harder back. This is all just their guesses. Uh they have found some fossils to kind of lead them onto that line of thinking. But as they dug and as they burrowed, they wound up kind of needing a harder back. And they would use that back to kind of form a

um you know to kind of form a uh really cool kind of hard burrow shaping back. And then over time they figured out how to get on the outside of their body. So, you know, much like crocodilians have free floating bone called scoots, these guys just went ahead, osteoderms, rather, not scoots, they wound up kind of getting their bone on the outside, uh, which is just incredible. Uh, and then that covering of keratin. So, in a way, well, this monitor lizard, this blackthroat sitting in here, kind of has a relationship to that shell other than it being a hide area.

All right, we're going to go to see a very famous resident of the camp who also has a shell that's healed up a bit. All right, let's hope Marge makes a really quick entrance here. Usually, she does, but you never can tell. We just got to make sure she sees uh Poppy here. There's our Cayman. I want to talk about Marge because, as you guys know, Marge has an interesting story with her plron. Now, the top of the shell is the carrapase. The bottom is the plron. If you've been watching this channel for a number of years, you know that Marge had an injury to her plron that I was really

concerned about. We even went to uh a different vet, not to Dr. Mike. Uh we went to uh a vet from Bush Wildlife and they were really concerned. They did a CT scan on her which could actually look into the body into the bone and uh they also found that she had like mold in her heart in her uh lungs and she was just like they said oh this turtle's not going to make it and I was devastated because we love Marge and that was like 2 or 3 years ago. So Marge is actually doing fantastic. What was happening though is the plastron had a hole in it and her internal uh what would

you call it like it's type of a septum or it's a your you know it's the sack that holds all the organs together I don't know her body was kind of protruding she had a hernia of her insides coming out of her shell uh now where the heck is she wouldn't you guys know it whenever we want Marge She's going to hide. But when we don't want Marge around, she's going to show up and try and take my toes off my body. So, let's see if we can get her uh figured out. She might actually be kind of hanging out of the water from time to time. Oh, there she is. What' I tell you? Come here,

Marge. I want to show you off. You handsome, beautiful girl. You Hey, hey, be good to me. So, this turtle, Margie, uh, named after my friend Marge from Woodward Camp. You could see right here there was that's the remainder. Let's wet it. See if we could clean it off a wee bit. Yeah, there you go. Look at that. That was actually looked like a tumor because her inards were actually coming out and we were concerned about her. And Dr. Mike Gillan said, "Kenon, you know what? She's acting like a turtle. She's eating. Why don't we do something called

benign neglect? leave her be and see what she can deal with. Now, I mentioned to you turtles are amazing. Uh, if they are healthy to begin with, if they are in the right environmental conditions, their bodies are incredible at fighting disease and healing themselves. And Marge certainly has defied the odds. She's a snapping turtle. They live in Careful. Don't you bite my fingers, okay? Toes or whatever. Um, they live in real swampy, dirty, muddy, oh, just the most fetted water you can imagine. They live in stagnant pools and swamps. Not a very conducive

uh place for cleanliness. So, having evolved over millions of years, their immune system, if they're strong, has the ability to fight off a lot of disease. And so she also didn't really have an open wound. There was that sack. There was that sealed kind of um film that was containing her inards, but that kind of got necrotic and rotted off and underneath it was fresh tissue that had sealed up her body cavity. And now as time goes on, what happens is her plron, the bone is healing. It's healing around that. And it just shows you how incredible these animals are

and how incredible their shells are at protecting their bodies. We move over here to a Chinese box turtle. Nothing dramatic happening to this animal, but still really cool to see how that shell is perfectly healthy. Uh here comes another Chinese box turtle out of the fountainyy grass that we've got here. These guys are fantastic. Really, really cool. Uh shells are pretty awesome. So, let's move on and see if we can find someone else who's got an interesting story to tell us from this shell. Ah, there he is. Nostradamus. How are you, my friend? Come here. Now, I know you might

be asking, what could possibly be wrong with Nostradamus? He's got the most perfect shell. And yes, he does get comments on that shell all the time from other turtle and tortoise nerds. They do remark about how magnificent his shell is and the growth and uh the lack of any noticeable pyramiding. Um I raised him up outdoors since he was oh about that big for a very long time. He's going to raise up. Come here, buddy. I need you to come over here so you can see uh what we want to show everybody. Um, just what happens with normal wear and tear if you are a

tortoise out there in the world, out there in the environment brushing up against things using uh, I don't know, just kind of dealing with stuff. Look at this. This was an old injury from our friend. It's very superficial, but it was a gash that was taken out of his shell. I noticed it one day and so the scoot, the keratin, it never went down to the bone, but the keratin got damaged and it eventually breaks off and it has a new growth underneath it. And that's how tortois' shells heal. They actually heal from the inside out. So, it's important to not necessarily cover the shell.

You don't want to cover anything up because you could be locking in bacteria and that could potentially be fatal if the animals get a blood infection if they become septic. Now, being that the shell is actually bone, there's actually blood vessels running through it and they can actually feel they can have they do have nerve endings in their shell. So they do feel and that's why you'll see tortoises scratching against something from time to time using a tree or bush or even cactus as a lofah as a way to kind of scrub their backs. You can also see the white growth here. These are

the annuli. All this different rings. You can't count the rings and tell how old a tortoise is because they might throw off growth lines or more growth during years of better food and better environmental conditions. However, one thing I want to point out is sometimes you'll see mosquitoes getting their proboscus, their nose, right in through these new growth lines and they're able to get blood out of the shell of the tortoise. And you can even see nos there, little gnats that drink from the tortoise. Uh, so it's an incredibly alive part of their body. They

can't jump out of it like in the cartoons. That doesn't happen. They're attached to their shell. They don't outgrow it and get a new shell. They just continually grow throughout their lives as they become adults. Uh, special mention, there is our good-looking boy. There is our buddy Phantom looking good. He's also got a very beautiful shell. Uh, but no damage on his shell at all. He's actually pretty well put together. Just thought I'd say hello because we've been kind of keeping an eye on this fell. Oh yeah, he's back to normal. All right. Look at that happy guy. Love you, man.

So glad you're doing good, Phantom. And your shell looks spectacular, dude. You're amazing. Yes, you are. He's kind of a snob. Phantomies. I'm a Galopicos tortoise. That's how I talk. Exactly. Not as laid-back and cool as our man Nostradamus, the big boy. Yes, Siri. Get up here. Nazi is more of the Zen master, the Buddhist, the uh the monk, if you will. He's got no ego. He's just shed his ego on his path to turtle enlightenment. Yes, his third eye is clean. Um, hey, since we're here, how about it? We've got Aina. Oh, look at this. She's got a little damage as well. You can see

that. So, this is just normal wear and tear. Uh, you know, when you're a tortoise out there in the world, you know, you're exposed. We've got some scuff marks. We've got some little superficial kind of peeling of the uh scoots. It's uh it is what it is. You know what I'm saying? These guys are out here in the elements. They grow up. They brush against the hard uh cement wall. They've got the trees. They've got a lot of things they've got to contend with. You never know. Uh falling branches, things, coconuts, things fall on them. It pays to have a nice hard shell. Whereas Cersei

is looking dynamite. Just a few little mud sandy uh scrapes and stuff like that. But otherwise, she's in good shape, too. And look at her. She's finching as well. She's coming up. Oh, what a good girl. I love you. Hey, man. It's so cool to see these tortoises do well here. But the fact that we even have uh they're using their bodies, their bodies are getting the normal stimulus, the normal stresses that they would incur uh out in the wild. That's fine, man. They're animals. My job is to feed them, house them, keep them safe, and if I notice they're sick, we get them

back to health. That's my gig, man. Uh, the rest is I want them to behave as they're supposed to, wild, natural, the best we can. They didn't ask to be brought to this continent. They didn't ask to be in captivity, but they are, and it's our job to do the right thing for them. So, that's what I was going on about. Now, we've got plenty of other turtles and tortoises that have interesting stories with their shells. Think of their shells as an autobiographical part of their body. Instead of tattoos, we get cool scars. That's kind of the That is the kind of uh tattoo that I like, you

know. I've got some scars on myself. Let's see. I think I got Where did it go? I used to have one on my calf. I don't know where it went. That's weird. It's gone away. This is nuts. Oh, there it is. Right there. That was a pretty good scar from bike riding. I've got scars on my head, scars on my chinoo. But what interesting stories they tell and that's what I was getting at today with these animals. All right, that's what I got for you. Hope you enjoyed it. We learned a little bit about the shell. We found out what's going on. We need a name for that girl that was

uh what's her name? Maybe Crunch. Is her name Crunch? Is her main Maybe it's Snack. Snacky. That's kind of a cool name cuz uh Gator Snap Gator Snapper got a snack out of her. That's for sure. He definitely got a little calcium. All right, that's it. I'm going to enjoy the animals. Uh, go enjoy yourselves wherever you may be. Be kind to animals and head on over to patreon.com/campkennon for more behindthe-scenes hy jinks and a live chat with me every Thursday 400 p.m. Eastern. Later.